


the greatest mercy is letting me touch you

by GStK



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Post-000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:43:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22172017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GStK/pseuds/GStK
Summary: you want another ending but i like this one.
Relationships: Belial/Lucilius (Granblue Fantasy), Lucio & Lucilius (Granblue Fantasy)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 94





	the greatest mercy is letting me touch you

he’s flexing his hand with vexation. neutrinos pass through his fingers instead of landing on them, instead of beading up as they are meant to do. gone through the rabbit’s hole and he is stripped of all his powers. it is, in many ways, more humiliating than to be stuck in the first place.

“it hasn’t been five minutes and you’re already giving me that look?” belial laughs, voice going sultry while he takes lucilius’ hand in his own. he brings it to his cheek, even when fingers become like claws. “can you hold out for a little longer, cilius? if you don’t behave yourself, he’ll sweep us right back in.”

lucilius is imagining grabbing belial by the throat and choking him. in answer, belial unfurls his wings. the sunny air gets a little darker with the vestiges of chaos left inside of him. he leads lucilius’ hand to the leathery skin. lucilius rolls his hands over the patagium. 

“keep it together for me, baby.”

“there is nothing to stop me from crushing your core and taking your power for my own,” threatens lucilius. it’s a lie; he feels the invisible bonds of the speaker hovering over his wrists. he bares his teeth. belial grins. “what nonsense did you whisper into his ear to bring this about?”

“ho-ho. you’re not scared i’m cheating, are you?” belial taunts, rubbing his thumb and his index finger over lucilius’ wrist. “a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, not even to his messiah.”

lucilius drives his heel into belial’s side. belial crumbles to their usual song and dance. “how long?”

“sorry?” belial groans. lucilius kicks him again. “ouch!”

“how much _time_ ,” lucilius presses.

“ah… ah? about twelve hours, i think. do you want to know the rules?” belial asks, but it’s pointless. lucilius’ eyes are already diverting to another place. they’re standing out in the open on some nameless sky island, the sun unforgivingly bright. when belial shields them both with his wings, lucilius loses a little conviction from the edge of his eyes. “you can’t build an empire in a day, cil.”

“do not tell me what i can and cannot do.”

belial whistles, low, and then he brings that fanged hand to his mouth and kisses the back of his creator’s palm.

“ _roger_. that said…”

he still feels the same excitement whenever lucilius pierces him with blue-white eyes.

“you might want a shirt before you go off to kill the singularity again.”

* * *

they do not go and kill the singularity.

the speaker went and stripped lucilius of his wings, ripped the chaos out of his skin -- and just like that, he’s cilius again. he’s a little paler, a little taller, but he clutches at belial all the same while they sail through the skies. (he complains. he can’t hear the sound of belial’s ichor ricocheting through his core. it’s a shame.)

lucilius is not foolish enough to follow belial into the streets of the first township they find. by the time he’s returned, however, lucilius is clawing his fingers into his forearms, and a circle of grass has been paced out of existence.

“i couldn’t remember what colour you liked,” belial lies through his teeth. he gladly lets lucilius rip at the front of his shirt in anger, even lifts up on his toes to give the appearance of being manhandled -- but they both know all that power’s been locked away. for playing into it, lucilius looks like he wants to murder him. so belial holds up two hangers.

lucilius studies him with killing intent before snatching the darker outfit. belial puts a hand on his hip and openly ogles him while he clothes.

a moment later, a ball of red and metal picks are launched at his head. they bounce off innocently.

“what are those,” lucilius demands. his entire existence has been frustrated by a scarf and bobby pins.

“so you look normal,” returns belial, approaching with the items in hand. lucilius tenses all of his muscles when belial sweeps behind him, staring dead forward until a palm is placed at the small of his back. he relaxes, uncomfortably. “the scar is hot but might cause some problems -- and we don’t know what the speaker’s been up to, you know? best to change your looks a little just in case.”

silence. he ties the scarf around lucilius’ neck. he sticks a couple pins in his mouth and angles lucilius’ chin towards him, sweeping back his bangs. a hair tie gathers the strands tickling his neck away and chains it to the top of his head.

lucilius looks beautiful. he’d looked his best with a spear in hand and an unfettered neck, but --

“your clothes.”

“mm? sorry?”

lucilius fixes him with another ‘how-are-you-this-stupid’ stare. it gets belial hot under the collar. “if they will identify me, they will identify you. change.”

belial’s eyebrows raise. “right, but i’m not the one they’re keeping an eye out for.”

lucilius violently rips his belt out of its loops and belial feels himself getting weak in the knees. “enough.”

only three hours in and he’s already feeling faint.

* * *

four, now, and belial has to bite back the whine in his throat. his clothes are changed, sure, but his dick is thoroughly unsucked and lucilius is moodily flipping through books.

he studies his fingernails while he relives the last forty minutes of rolling around in the grass. out here, lucilius tastes alive -- he licks his lips to bring back some of the taste,

and lucilius stomps on his foot. it makes him wither. a little.

“you are here to search,” he says, “not stand idle and waste the mind i created daydreaming over lesser beings.”

“i wouldn’t call them lesser,” belial replies, obediently leaning in and giving back his attention. he buries half of his face in a head of white hair and studies the page before them. “but none of this is going to help us, cil. the skydwellers don’t have a reputation for understanding how to shatter dimensions.”

and their language? sloppy, dirty. lucilius shuts the book and stacks it with the others. the storekeep is starting to get antsy, but belial’s time is better spent remembering his creator’s penmanship. how many nights he spent with his head on lucilius’ thigh, on his knees, listening to the scrawl of gilded ink across a page --

“we have no time and i have not the power to bring us where we need,” lucilius mutters. he’s stock still, but his mind is racing a lightyear a second. he is a big fish in a small pond, and for all of his intelligence, all of his cunning… he is so desperately out of his element. it’s very cute. “and you,” his creator accuses, “will not take me there.”

“take you where, cil?”

lucilius grunts. “where else, belial? to the singularity. to the speaker. to the spare.”

“that’s a tall order.”

sandy’ll kill ‘em. djeeta will assume they’re here to attack and then kill them, and probably with his own scythe. the speaker has no answers to give them, and he’s on a hair-thin trigger as it is, ready to dismiss them at a moment’s notice.

lucilius is red in the face. he’s seething, and he’s even beginning to tremble. belial anchours him with a hand at his waist, but then…

his stomach growls. oh. right.

“and now i am attacked from the inside,” lucilius claims.

belial sighs. “i know a place.”

* * *

he doesn’t, but few women can resist his call and pull. they’re seated at a small little diner under the hour, with plates of some common-looking food. all lucilius has done is stare in thin-lipped silence since he began his routine, deep-diving into all of the accusations he wishes to make of the speaker.

he wrinkles his nose and pulls back when belial presents him a bite on a fork. “open wide.”

“what are you doing.”

“feeding you,” belial explains. lucilius Does Not Like That. “from what i can gather the speaker’s put you in some mortal shell for the time being. and that means you have to do mortal things. like eat. so… say _ahh_ , cil.”

lucilius turns his cheek. belial shrugs his shoulders and eats it for him.

stubborn as he is, his creator will forever be led by his curiosity. he is tentative in steel when he asks, “what do they eat?”

“pheasant?” recalls belial, tilting his head into his hand. he counts off a few centuries on his fingers. “lots of game. they hunt with guns and spears. and they figured out how to grow their own crops a little while ago, too.”

“thus, fruit.”

belial grins. “want me to feed you grapes, oh messiah?”

lucilius does not grace him with an answer. he says, instead, “thus, apples.”

belial waits a beat, and then he smiles, for real. “apples.”

they get apples.

the viciousness with which lucilius tears into each one makes belial shiver.

* * *

belial emerges from the baths with a refreshed sigh. lucilius is still dripping wet despite having gone first… leaving first, that is. belial wraps him in a towel and lucilius jolts up in his arms, chin raising.

“a little _irrumatio_ and some steam got you all sleepy?” belial taunts affectionately. “you had two millenia to sleep, cilius! stay with me a little while longer.”

“-- tempting as it may be,” lucilius murmurs. his voice is sore and throaty, tone kind of husky. it’s hot. “i am not foolish enough to jump out of the window to get away from you.”

“i’m touched!”

it’s just the exhaustion, the new and foreign feeling lucilius doesn’t know how to fight -- that’s what he thinks at first. but lucilius is alert by the time he is buttoning his creator back into his clothes, watching him quietly as he combs his hair back, pins his bangs into place. it is a ritual permitted on the back of something mysterious. belial sucks in a breath, savours the moment.

he looks at lucilius’ lips when they part to speak. “i will see the speaker.”

“i’m not sure that’s a good idea, cilius.”

“i **will** see the speaker,” he repeats. “you know of his location. you will take me there.”

belial winces. disobeying means getting ripped apart when they’re back in the rift, but. (but when has he ever been able to truly defy lucilius?) “i do, but there’s a couple things before that--”

“you think i care.”

“i know you don’t,” belial says, so honestly and in love, “but if we’re going to go, you’ve gotta blend in.”

lucilius scoffs. “i am prepared.”

 _not at all_ , belial thinks, pressing a kiss to his temple. “okay, okay…”

* * *

the speaker is a little… preoccupied, today. or maybe he flaked on keeping an eye on them when belial wrapped his hands around lucilius’ hips in the bath. either way, the man’s eyes widen briefly when he catches sight of them.

lucilius stomps straight over to him, ruining all false pretence. dancers and couples must swerve out of his path while belial trails behind. at least cilius cuts a nice figure in a suit.

“you,” lucilius spits.

“ah… yes,” the speaker says, turning away from his dinner date. “pray excuse me.” he faces lucilius, putting on an innocent face. “may i help you?”

“you will regret your folly,” lucilius accuses. “i--”

the speaker laughs gently. he almost sounds like lucifer, but… not. lucilius goes stark white at the sound and belial can almost see him lunging over the table, grabbing the silver knife there… but the speaker fills his role and, well, speaks. “of course, of course. i am sorry to have neglected you for so long.” he offers out his hand. “may i have this dance?”

lucilius stares.

the speaker doesn’t seem to notice how the silence drags out, so belial clears his throat, steps up. “he doesn’t dance.” the speaker looks at him and then right through him, always a little soulless.

“you must be mistaken,” the speaker counters cheerfully. “everyone dances. come, come.”

lucilius is swept away and choking on his own tongue before a breath can pass. he jerks and thrashes against the speaker’s hold, but a whispered word makes him stony, haunches raising.

it’s an atrocious sight; lucilius is two right feet and world-ending misery. the speaker is light on his feet, airy, laughable for someone who caused millenia of agony just for the hell of it.

still, belial has to bite the inside of his cheek ‘til it bleeds. lucilius’ first dance should have been with him. it was always meant to be.

* * *

the subsuming of the sea steps and the ocean floor. one land devours the other. one hand holds another. eating away at memory, identity. frosted autumn trees without leaves and a rainy sky. a place in between, a transition-- beautiful and delicate. violent to behold.

evaporating in the warm sun. stillness of reflection.

the moon is holding its breath outside the window. the speaker sweeps him in circles around skydwellers, around a marble room, though his arms remain stiff and his feet tumbling.

“you look beautiful tonight,” he says. “your attendant has cleaned you up nicely.”

“belial,” lucilius snaps.

“belial,” the speaker agrees warmly. another turn of complicated feet. the speaker sways as if he belongs in skydweller society. this is wrong, all wrong. “i have given you flesh for a day. your time wears thin -- why have you come to see me?” a smile. “i had expected you to resume summoning the world’s end.”

“...”

what can be done in a day? what can be accomplished with an earthly body? the answer is so much and more, but the strings on him are heavy. a voice in lucilius’ head is screaming.

“the skydwellers celebrate a new dawn. a new year,” the speaker explains. his fingers splay on lucilius’ waist. “accordance. i only wish you could be here with us.”

“your rituals don’t concern me.” the speaker looks upon him sadly. lucilius feels bile in his throat. “if i cannot purge you, you will give me answers. why am i here?”

“why, indeed…”

lucilius reaches out a hand to claw off the speaker’s face but his fingers are quickly cemented to the man’s shoulder. against his own bidding, his body begins to move in unison with the speaker. this is a game and he is a toy to be played with.

all of the voices are screaming.

“we are all imperfect. i yearn for a voice that no longer speaks to me. though, as She begins to stir…” the speaker grows troubled, silent. lucilius’ shoulders tremble but he cannot let go. “... the ones you created in yearning for me define you. i cannot help you. i can only stop you. but you might yet bring peace to the one who remains with you.”

the music comes to a halt. the pinpricks of pain racing across his skin lift. lucilius takes his hand away, stretching his fingers. the speaker smiles at him.

he punches the man square across the jaw before blackness takes him and he goes crumbling.

* * *

“i was hoping to dance with him.”

“is that so?” the speaker replies politely. he nurses his chin with a bag of ice, splayed elegantly across the balustrade in the moonlight. “my apologies.” he is not, truthfully, very sorry.

belial nurses lucilius’ head in his lap, seated on the floor of the balcony. their time is wearing thin as the moon crests to its peak.

“you do not have to go with him.”

“and spend another eternity in prison without him _or_ sandy to tease? forget it,” belial laughs. with a grim smile, he adds, “i would kill you first.”

the speaker shuts his eyes. “you would die and he would be sad to see you perish.”

“only because i didn’t give him the chance to kill me.”

“... i confess i do not understand you two very well,” the speaker laments. he looks confused. good.

lucilius is a picture. he looks unearthly in the light, brows un-knitted for once in dreamless sleep. no more visions. no more strategies. they’ve been given a home by force and it’s all been put to an end.

it’s the happiest end a man could ask for, second only to conquering a chaotic world with his messiah.

“i don’t think you’ve ever been in love, speaker.”

“i love my master more than anything,” the speaker disagrees, shaking his head, his hair flowing over his shoulders. “as you love yours. and my master loves all of his creations, but…”

“you don’t get it. you really don’t,” belial chuckles.

“your feelings are… difficult to parse. perhaps they are more akin to how i feel for the singularity?”

“i can’t wait to hear _that_ story.”

lucilius stirs and his head slides across belial’s thigh. all time stops and all breath is caught in that singular moment. let it define the rest of his life.

“... say,” belial begins quietly, “you owe me.”

“i have given you more than you deserve,” the speaker dismisses.

“you took my dance. when you put us back in there, give us some music. i want to teach him.”

“-- i suppose. projections are not difficult.”

belial smiles, content. the speaker hovers in the second, waiting for his snappy comeback, his clever ruse to turn it all inside-out. what the man doesn’t get is that love fills you up and takes away the need.

the speaker gives a light snap of his fingers. the world does not tear a hole unto itself to drag them back in, but they begin to fade, shimmering and slow.

“not very fancy this time,” belial says.

“there are mortals sleeping downstairs,” the speaker replies.

they are dismissed back to the rift in a haze. lucilius will awaken with anger in his heart and a new desire to open the gate. belial will entertain his thoughts and piece him back together.

and then they’ll dance across shattered dimensions and defiled dreams to the thin sound of a string quartet.


End file.
